William James first coined the term “stream of consciousness” in 1890 to describe the flow of consciousness, as metaphors of water seem the most appropriate to describe the flow of thoughts in the human mind. Water is often connected in literature to the flow and passage of time, as time itself is understood to be fluid, relative, non-linear, and variable in one’s experience of the passage of time. This panel seeks to create a dialogue concerning water and time, with a particular focus on the ways in which literary texts link the human mind, water, and temporality. Papers might engage such questions as:

How does water represent the passage of time as fluid, inevitable, asynchronous, and/or non-linear?

How does water represent a geological or deep temporality in literature?

How does water demonstrate an alternative flow of temporality or a multiplicity of experiences of the flow temporality among the nonhuman world?

How do authors represent human history/the human body as dependent on and/or intertwined with water?

How is water represented as enduring through time and human history in literature? Or how is the urgency of the water crisis represented as a crisis of the present moment?

How does the presence or lack of water contribute to the decay of ecosystems and environments over time?

How does water represent resistance to a public and standardized system of time versus a private and individual one?

How is water imagery used literature in the recovery of time and memory?

The Twelfth ASLE Biennial Conference, Rust/Resistance: Works of Recovery, will be held June 20-24, 2017 at Wayne State University, Detroit MI. For more information on the conference please follow this link: http://www.asle.org/conference/biennial-conference/